Hyrule Castle
by nalagaOcean777
Summary: No one seems to pay it much attention, really. It's just another dungeon to get through. It's just a place where Princess Zelda happens to live. Nothing special. ...Right?


A/N: 'Cause really, you can't help but appreciate it when you think it over. :\

Disclaimer: I'd have to be a Hylian King to own Hyrule Castle. And I'd have to be an accomplice of Nintendo to own anything in the Zelda franchise, for that matter. Seeing as I'm neither of those things, I guess the rest goes unsaid…

* * *

Its makers would have been proud, had they lived to see its triumphs.

It remains a thing of architectural splendor at heart, the overall concept of the actual foundations a thing to be borrowed and replicated time and time again by stonemasons and carpenters for the years, decades, and centuries to come. Six stories tall in theory, possibly larger underground, full of chambers and rooms and gardens and tall turrets, the walls comprised of three feet of tightly-packed, perfectly chiseled stone that glowered silver and gray in sunlight, and topped by the deep, royal blue of the rooftop tiles, a prominent thing for any wandering horseman to seek out on the horizon.

Hyrule Castle. Home of the Royal Family.

Time and time again, revisions needed to be made, of course. It was rather a given, after a while, for changes to be made every three or four generations or so. In the time after its creation this castle has grown larger, smaller, shorter, taller - deeper dungeons, higher turrets, and countless, countless repairs. Yet the gray stones that build its roots have remained, and have seen all and everything there might possibly be to see.

Its many corridors have been the echoing harbors of every speck of maid's gossip to ever be conceived, its marble floors the receiver to the first tentative steps of every infant Princess Zelda since the second bearer of the title. The throne erected - and repaired hundreds of times over - within its central halls has borne the weight of every one of Hyrule's short-lived kings to date, and it has housed generations and generations of knights and sentries, scouts and mercenaries - as well as almost every royal head of the Zora and Goron tribes since alliances were first established in the early days of the kingdom.

It has borne tears of bitterness, wails of desperation, shouts of joy, peals of laughter. And there were other things that it has had to endure, of course.

More often than not, the shortcomings of the Royal Family often endangered the Castle itself. Countless now were the times when it has had to cope with monstrous evils roaming its halls, spilling Hylian blood, and it was now almost commonplace for its own lords and governors to be locked away in its own dungeons at the slightest of whims on the part of the enemy, whomever it might be. Many a time its interior has been ravaged by these encounters - and more than a dozen times over it has also had to deal with the wrath of Ganondorf Dragmire himself.

Which was more than any other respectable fortress could say for itself.

It deserved more respect, certainly. Not that it had ever gotten any. Many a Hylian historian has pestered the Royal Family about the matter over the years. The whole area was practically a museum of valuable history! At the very _least_ you could hire more competent guards to defend the place! But such things are mere trifles to folk of power, as every one of those historians has so far had to accept in chagrin. No, they do not care for their castles, not until they fail, not until the enemy goes and floods in like a break tide. And even then, that's the least of their worries.

You'd think a little more appreciation could be in order. This place has housed the Master Sword, Blade of Evil's Bane. This place has had the privilege to witness the green tunic, the determined eyes, the flaming courage and the fighting vigor of the ever-renowned Hero - in almost every one of his reincarnations, to boot.

It has been the stage of many a 'final battle', a portal to the Sacred Realm, and is the standing enigma of Hyrule itself. It has been the seat of the powers of both good and evil. It has even been trapped in a pocket of time.

It has been broken into, broken out of, raided, looted, saved, and restored. It has been destroyed. It has been reconstructed. It has been shrouded by barriers and plunged into Twilight. In another parallel universe it was even drowned by the flowing tides of the sea.

…

It has been remembered.

It has been forgotten.

But it shall remain, always.

For even deep in the bowels of the earth, even in the abyss of the ocean, the gray stones and blue tiles that make up its foundations shall linger. And they have witnessed everything - all that has, is, and will ever become Hyrule.

* * *

Yes. Its makers would have been proud indeed.

* * *

A/N: Eh, I dunno where this came from, actually. O.o It just kind of popped up in my head and wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to write something or end of going crazy. -.-' But really, when you think about it, Hyrule Castle's gone through a lot to be around for _this long_. I mean, seriously, my house wouldn't be able to stand up to Ganondorf's sheer presence for a few seconds, and this castle has had to put up with the fighting and mindless destruction for thousands of years…

I guess you could call this a drabble or something. But I'm kinda happy with how it turned out, though it might have been a bit rushed. Feedback is much appreciated. :D


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